Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Why coherence is not enough' and 'Gdel's Proof'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions
Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them.
     From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88
     A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality
The human intellect has not been, and cannot be, fully formalized [Nagel/Newman]
     Full Idea: The resources of the human intellect have not been, and cannot be, fully formalized.
     From: E Nagel / JR Newman (Gödel's Proof [1958], VIII)
     A reaction: This conclusion derives from Gödel's Theorem. Some people (e.g. Penrose) get over-excited by this discovery, and conclude that the human mind is supernatural. Imagination is the key - it is a feature of rationality that escapes mechanization.